Remember the crash and burn days of early 2000, when anything tech seemed to get sucked down the proverbial toilet bowl? Well, New Yorkers are tough and so is its tech scene, according to a recent report by a New York think tank called The Center for An Urban Future. The report, New Tech City, contends that technology is a sector that serves as a foundation to the city. But more importantly, the authors of the report go so far as to say it's able to withstand a loss of venture capital and even another recession. In other words, it doesn't face the horror of another Internet bubble bursting. Jonathan Bowles, author of the report and director of the The Center for an Urban Future, said in a Wall Street Journal article:
It’s not going to be inexorable ride up; it’s going to go up and down. But the long term trend is that we don’t see tech falling off a cliff like it did in 2000. New York is really building something sustainable.
Of course, not all is hunky dory in the Big Apple. Bowles notes in the Journal article that none of the major tech IPOs in recent years were from companies based in New York, and other barriers include poor Internet bandwidth service, expensive real estate and a high cost of living. Nonetheless, Bowles predicts that tech jobs serving fashion, finance and the media are safer bets than the infrastructure and networking focus of the dot-com era. And he surprisingly notes that new tech scene is “about applying technology to traditional industries” like finance, media and fashion. Bowles apparently doesn't think techies should be concerned with the knockout punch Wall Street took in 2008, nor the virtual implosion of the print industry and the lingering economic effects that have tapped on fashion's shoulder. Fortunately for those in the software and services business,
eBay and Microsoft announced plans to add research and development centers in the city last week, joining major names such as Google and Facebook. The city also has a robust startup scene, including Foursquare, Gilt Groupe, Kickstarter, Tumblr, ZocDoc and Etsy.
Related Links
- New Tech City [Center for an Urban Future]
